Tomorrow Belongs To Me
by LiechLiet
Summary: Germany, 1936. Eighteen-year-old Eva Schneider wants to escape, and her ticket out of Munich is a blond, square-jawed officer named Ludwig Beilschmidt. / Historical Hetalia. Rated for mature themes and the more sensitive side of history.
1. Prologue: New York, 1983

**_Please read before continuing: _****The subject of the Second World War is a touchy one with the Hetalia fandom, since nobody wants to disrespect those involved in the actual conflict. I realise this, which is why I want to make one thing clear - in writing this fic, I mean absolutely no disrespect to Germany and its people. I have German ancestry and a profound interest in the history of Germany between the years 1919-1945, which I have studied for two years at school as well as in my own time for my own interest. Writing this is as much of a research task as it is a writing exercise for the portrayal both of canon characters and my own characters.**

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_New York, 1983_

IN MEMORY OF  
EVA SCHNEIDER  
1919-1983  
BELOVED MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER

The tombstone was shiny, slick from the thin drizzle that had slowly soaked the family and acquaintances of Eva Schneider. They were by no means a large crowd, and once the committal was done, there were only two figures still standing by the fresh earth – a father and daughter. The father was tall, blond hair thinning on top, the beginnings of lines around his mouth, and one broad arm tucked around his youngest daughter. He shielded her from the damp air and the sadness on his face. His daughter almost melted into him, long black coat indistinguishable from his, all but camouflaged if it had not been for her bright red hair, curling thick and wild around her shoulders.

There stood in silence, which was not comfortable in the sense that they were happy with it – it was simply shared. They understood each other.

The redheaded girl clamped her lips together, cheeks slowly burning with the effort of holding back her tears, which welled in eyes the colour of the moody sky above them.

"Leonie," her father murmured, stroking her hair with a careful hand. "It's okay to cry - "

"Oma would hate this," she managed to choke out, wiping her face with the back of her hand, sniffing almost angrily. "She'd think we were being morbid, all telling stories about her and moaning and wailing. That's why I'm not."

It was then that another figure approached them.

"Ludwig Schneider?"

The father turned, stiff with surprise and suspicion. "Yes?"  
Leonie's eyes flicked between him and the stranger. "Dad - " _But your name is Lucas!_ she would have said, if her confusion had not been cut off by complete shock as she took in the stranger's face.

She recognised the eyes, their shape and colour, and the nose. She recognised the strong jaw. She even recognised the hairline. But they were on a man who was half her father's age.

"You are Eva's son, aren't you?" The stranger extended a polite hand, which Ludwig Schneider shook.

"Yeah, that's me," he offered a hesitant smile. "I go by Luke, though. Did you, uh, know my mother?" He asked even though it seemed odd that a man in his early twenties would know an old lady like his mother, regardless of the nationality that they no doubt shared, if the man's accent said anything about his ancestry.

The stranger gave a solemn nod, then looked around, very briefly. "I'm sure you have plans for the rest of the day - " there it was, a telltale German accent that even Leonie could hear, like a watered-down version of the one her Oma had spoken with, " – but if we would be able to talk at some point, I would really appreciate it. Especially if your sister was able to come as well." There was a strange look on his face – not happy, but curiously… hopeful? Was that it?

"Uh, I'll have to ask her once we get back - " Luke waved his hand back in the general direction of the church behind them. " – who should I tell her is asking?"

"Ludwig Beilschmidt."

The name was the match that lit the paper of their memory on fire; that name was one recognised by Luke and Leonie both.

"That… was my father's name," Luke said with a careful smile, watching the stranger. "What a small world, right?"

Ludwig Beilschmidt only nodded. "Smaller than we think."

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_Oma_: 'grandma', German

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**A/N: Yeah, this chapter is really the bare bones of a prologue. Hopefully I'll put the first chapter up soon so that readers can actually get into the story a bit more :)**


	2. Munich, 1937

_The branch on the linden is leafy and green  
The Rhine gives its gold to the sea  
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen  
Tomorrow belongs to me_

- 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me', Cabaret

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**_Munich, March 1937._**  
_Adolf Hitler has been Chancellor of Germany for just over four years and has turned the country from the liberal Weimar Republic into a dictatorship._

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"Eva?"

No answer.

"_Eva_."

The girl in question was hunched stubbornly over her dinner, her red-blond hair a thick curtain between her and her mother - her pale, nervous, worrisome mother.

"Why do you fight me like this,_ Liebling_?" Margareta Schneider sighed, sitting back, pushing away the remainder of her dinner. She was by no means an old woman, but the stress of the past decade – uprisings, hyperinflation, unemployment, the spit of the rest of Europe on the back of her nation – had taken its toll on her. She now had dark circles under her pale blue eyes, and a thinness to her hair that made the blonde of it looked washed out rather than shiny, as it had once had been. "It would be so much easier for the both of us if you –"

"Leave me be, Mama!" Eva interrupted, her head finally snapping up, her eyes hard and clear as glass. "I'm tired."

"Of _what_?" her mother asked incredulously. "You barely help me in the shop all day! You sit and brood, you're rude to customers, you don't even remember to get the loaves out on time…" she trailed off, not wishing to add more to her daughter's miserable list of flaws. "I'm tired of it. You need to do something, something that will lead to a future…"

"And what sort of future are you thinking of?" Eva pushed her plate away as well, but roughly, almost slamming it into her mothers' and chipping its edge. "You want me to get married? Married to a nice Hitler Youth boy, so you can pretend that your daughter isn't –"

"_Eva!_" Margareta's eyes flickered to the back door, then to her daughter's flushed, angry face. "Things have _changed_, you can't say things like that and expect that nobody will hear and nobody will react!"

"I didn't say anything," was the sullen reply. "You interrupted me." And with that, they fell into an uncomfortable silence. Eva looked around the kitchen, scowling. She hated it. Every day it seemed to grow more dim and drab, the four walls pressing in suffocatingly to the point where she wanted to scream. Their blankness, the profound air of nothing that they exuded, was the polar opposite of Eva herself, sitting tense and tight in her chair, her brightly-patterned skirt _too short_ and her make-up _too thick_.

Eva wanted to spit at people who told her that. She would wear whatever she damn well liked – who cared if her ugly old housewife neighbours thought that her skin should be as clear and clean as her supposedly virginal soul?

What would they say if they knew she found their daughters so much more attractive than their sons? They would probably faint on the spot, she decided, smirking a little. Faint, but not before they called the Gestapo first.

"Is something funny?" her mother asked, sounding more worn-down than usual. She had started to clear the dishes, something Eva decided not to help with.

"No."

"I meant it when I said you needed to do something with your life." There was an assertive note in her mother's voice now, and it grew stronger with every word. "For your sake rather than mine. As much as I know you believe it, you are not invincible." Even an Aryan girl with blue eyes, broad hips and a flirtatious smile would get into trouble if she was suspected of working against the government and the Führer.

"I want you to listen to me now. Hold your tongue and listen."

Eva sat a little straighter, brow furrowing. She had never heard her mother sound like this.

"You'll scream at me when I say this, I know you will - " was Margareta feeling braver, able to discipline her feisty daughter, because she had her back to her, standing at the sink where she couldn't see her face? " – but try to see how this will help you." There was a pause as she took a deep breath. "They have opened a clinic nearby. The Lebensborn, they call it."

"The Lebensborn." Eva rolled the world around in her mouth, trying to recognise it. You could pinpoint the very second she did; her lip curled in disgust. "The Lebensborn? Isn't that were women go when they want to - "

"Donate a child for the Führer," Margareta finished off quickly, "either by putting a child up for adoption or, well… agreeing to have a child with an approved man. At least, that's what I've heard." She drew a deep breath, waiting for the explosion.

It didn't come.

"You're saying you want me to get pregnant by a man I've most likely never met before, push out a screaming brat, dump it in the arms of a faceless doctor and never look back?" Eva was just… stunned. There was no way her mother had suggested that.

"It's nine months,_ Liebling_. Just nine months." And then there was not another word.

Nine months compared to a lifetime of what she might be put through if she was caught undermining the government.

Eva watched her mother's back, looking at the slump of her shoulders underneath her faded dress. Her mother was aging, she could see it, and knew that it wasn't only the natural turn of time that was the culprit. Deep down, she did care about her mother.

It would just be nine months.

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_Gestapo_: the official secret police of Nazi Germany

_Lebensborn_: literally 'fountain of life' (German), a Nazi government scheme that put illegitimate Aryan children up for adoption into good Nazi homes, first in Germany, then in countries invaded during the Second World War.

_Liebling_: darling, German

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**A/N: I know the beginning is a little slow, since we're just meeting the main characters, but the main part of the story kicks off in the next chapter, with the arrival of Ludwig. Also, a lot of my inspiration for this fic comes from the song 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me', from the musical Cabaret, which really shows the sentiment that was in Germany at this time - everyone was desperate for a new tomorrow, a new beginning, where everything would be better.**


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